


In which Karkat learns about the magic of Christmas and possibly gets knocked up by a seasonal beverage

by iwantcandy2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas Crack, Christmas Party, Crack, Eggnog, Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gamzee Makara and Karkat Vantas Moirallegiance, Gen, Giftstuck, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Santa Claus - Freeform, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat wants to use the Christmas party as an opportunity to confess his flush crush, but first he must learn about the wonders of Christmas.</p>
<p>Trigger warnings include (but not limited to): Immaculate conception, copious amounts of Christmas spirit, Eggnog-induced unplanned pregnancy, mischievous elves, heaping piles of manure, and no less than twenty-six f-bombs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In which Karkat learns about the magic of Christmas and possibly gets knocked up by a seasonal beverage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sigery97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigery97/gifts).



> First time I've ever done any sort of request or gift exchange, so pardon me if I have no idea what I'm doing. To Sigery97: all you wanted for Christmas was some pairing goodness and all you got was this crack fic.

Humans had the strangest fucking traditions you had ever heard of.

“So you encourage red-swaddled hobos to break into your hive in order to celebrate a baby being spontaneously conceived without proper mammalian reproduction?” you ask.

“Pretty much,” Dave concedes. 

“And you’re inviting me to a party to celebrate this event?”

“John’s inviting you. I’m just passing along the info. Don’t feel tickled in your weird alien junk, though, you aren’t a special snowflake. He’s inviting everyone.”

“Everyone?” you ask, one eyebrow jumping north.

“Yeah, everyone. Even certain assholes you try to pretend you don’t have an enormous crush on.”

“Fuck you! Like my flush leanings are any of your business.”

Dave just smirks, the edges of his lips rolling up. You’d like to give the seamless panel of his teeth a few new windows, but you have bigger aquatic lifeforms to fry. Or woo, as the case may be. 

But first, you must learn about this “Christmas.” You decide to solicit advice from the human who is least likely to give you bullshit.

“Jade Harley, what the fuck is a Christmas party?”

“It’s a party for Christmas, dumbass” she replies, her arms elbow deep in an earthy blend of hoofbeast shit and decomposing vegetable matter. Apparently growing plants is something that herbivores do, and Jade is simply the best there is. Possibly because she has no competition here.

“Thank you for that brilliant and detailed explanation,” you growl. “Truly you are a font of wisdom, spewing forth obvious platitudes with the regularity of an ill barkbeast’s bowels.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to be more specific,” she shoots back, pulling her arms out of the soil with a wet _schlock_. “I’ve never actually been to a Christmas party, you know.”

“Oh, I forgot that you grew up socially retarded.”

She scowls and tosses you a quick middle finger before returning to rooting around in the soil.

“Look,” you sigh, resigning yourself to descending to her intellectual level, “I was just wondering what sort of social behaviors were expected at this gathering.”

“Well, in that case,” Jade says, turning her full attention on you, “everyone knows that Christmas is a time for family.”

Family: a human term to designate people you do not really like, but are prevented from murdering due to social taboos. 

You snort and demand, “Then why the fuck have a party? If the point of this holiday is to spend time with people you are already socially bound to, why throw a big event that invites others outside your familial circle into your hive?”

Jade’s eyes light up, and she eagerly explains, “Oh, well, Christmas isn’t just about the family you have, fuckass. It’s about the family you want.”

“Go on.”

“Well, Christmas is traditionally the birth of Jesus. Do you know about Jesus, Karkat?” she asks, giving you a pointed look.

“Dave already explained to me about this miracle baby clawing its way from its virgin mother’s womb amidst assorted livestock, yes.”

“Oh good. Then you’ll know all about…eggnog.”

“Eggnog?”

“Yes. In order to celebrate the miraculous and unknowable fertilization of the Christ child, everyone drinks a thick, creamy slurry made from chicken embryos,” she explains, her face becoming gravely serious. “Sometimes, if someone is filled with enough Christmas spirit, drinking the eggnog allows them to become spontaneously fertilized, too, so they can have their own miracle baby.”

“Okay, now you’re just fucking with me.”

“Oh no, Karkat,” Jade reassures. “I wouldn’t joke about my species’ most hallowed traditions. Besides, there is solid scientific evidence that shows that drinking the combination of egg and milk stimulates a person’s baby oven.”

You grunt noncommittally. On one hand, that sounds like a load of bullshit, on the other hand, you know fuck all about how human reproduction works, so it could be true. 

“So everyone ceremonially drinks the sweet nectar of the Virgin Mary,” Jade continues. “Afterwards, there is no way to tell who is going to wind up with a miracle baby to take care of. It’s a Christmas miracle!”  
You quirk an eyebrow, but say nothing. Whether this is true or a freshly steaming pile of dookie doesn’t matter, you figure, because your alien biology will protect you from any miracle babies. 

“Okay, so festive unplanned pregnancy aside, what other traditions do you have?”

“Well, there is the mistletoe…”

“Missile toes?” you ask, trying to visualize what the hell that would even look like while simultaneously trying to shake the pan-numbing images from your head.

“It’s a kind of plant. It’s, um…used by Santa? Yes! Back when Santa was broke, he used to give out wreaths of mistletoe instead of actually good presents.”

“So how do you use it in a modern Christmas?” you ask.

“Well, um, you are supposed to put mistletoe above where you want Santa to leave your presents. He is part elf, you know, and they have a really mischievous streak. So if you don’t explicitly tell him where to put the presents, he’ll hide them around your house, and then you have to hunt for them Christmas morning.”

“Okay. So if I see mistletoe in Egbert’s hive, I’ll know to leave a bag of barkbeast shit there.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go near the mistletoe if I was you,” Jade warned. “You see, if you stand under mistletoe, Santa might get confused and think _you’re_ the present.”

“Why the fuck would he think that? That makes no fucking logical sense. He leaves the presents, not takes them, so wouldn’t he just-”

“DON’T QUESTION SANTA CLAUS!” Jade barks. Her ears flatten against her head and she is practically snarling in defense of her beloved obese elf. “Santa is all-knowing, and he does what he wants. Look, the point is that there is a tradition, that if you catch someone standing under the mistletoe, and you kiss them, then Santa will kidnap them on Christmas night and take them back to the North Pole where they will spend a year as an indentured servant before being returned to you next Christmas wrapped in a bow.”

“Are you- what the- how does that- but it- that is the stupidest load of steaming, festering hoofbeast shit I have ever heard! A thousand flies are producing their offspring in the stream of lies that flows from between your contorted teeth. I would have to be suffering from a serious head injury, possibly _decapitation,_ to be gullible enough to believe what you just told me.”

Jade just shrugs and says, “Well, believe what you want. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She goes back to cultivating her domesticated shrubbery, and with an acerbic snort, you leave. 

As the party draws closer, you debate on whether or not you should even show up. Not that you believe the Jade-human’s ridiculous lies for one second, but you know for a fact the party will be awkward as hell. All those assholes in the same room? You might as well masturbate with a culling fork.

…Except you actually _like_ some of those assholes. You like some of those assholes a lot, and you were hoping that this party would be an opportunity to mingle with said assholes, and to use the laid-back atmosphere to tell certain assholes how you feel about them. Maybe get more intimate with a choice asshole…wow, that particular epithet really got out of hand.

The fact remains that there are three hours until the party starts and you are sitting on the fence so hard about whether or not to go, it’s starting to chafe your ass. Okay, that’s it, you need to stop thinking about asses. 

Against your better judgment, you decide to consult your moirail for advice. See, that’s how you know when you’ve hit rock bottom, when you consider the sewage spilling from a spoor-seduced sadist to be sage.

Gamzee is draped over a chair, his feet pointing skywards and his horns brushing the floor. He’s humming under his breath, a dry rasping sound that he sways his legs to. He notices you, and his dopey smile intensifies, but he doesn’t stop the little concert in his head.

“Gamzee, I need your advice. That means you have to focus your brain for two minutes and concentrate on my words. Can you do that, Gamzee?”

He nods, but the humming continues.

“You ate the pie again, didn’t you?”

It’s a rhetorical question. Gamzee was only allowed into your community of misfits under the condition that he take medication to help with what Rose described as “acute chromatic-triggered psychosis.” She then proceeded to alchemize several mind-altering tablets that he was supposed to take daily, but Gamzee preferred the pie, and everyone agreed that as long as he was moderately happy and everyone kept being moderately alive it was good enough. It’s a situation you aren’t particularly pleased about, but at the moment a stoned Gamzee is all you have.

“Gamzee, look, the whole murderous, fundamentally dysfunctional gang hasn’t been together since…well, if you’re including the kids, we’ve never all been in the same place at the same time. And I just feel like this will probably turn out for the worst.”

“I hear ya bro,” he says under his breath, nodding his head.

“And as usual, it will fall on me to make sure everyone leaves in one piece, and no one kills anyone, and I already failed at that once and I’m not ready to fuck up again. I just, _rrrgh!_ ” you take a moment to snarl in frustration, your nails digging into the dense foliage of your hair.

With the fluidity of a bottle of Faygo, Gamzee slides off the chair and rolls to his feet. He takes hold of your hand and pulls it away from your head.

“Don’t want to mess up your motherfucking hair, brother,” he says, doing exactly that with a ruffle. “How are you supposed to impress your flush crush?”

“Fuck you, I’m not going!” you scream, yanking your hand away. “Bad clown! Worst moirail!”

As you storm towards the door, Gamzee calls after you, “See you there.”

You’re fuming, because that’s what the stupid idiot does. He takes all your insecurities and nervousness and turns them into anger, something you can deal with. His own way of helping you. 

You were planning on wearing something nice, or at least something different than your usual shirt and slacks. However, you know if you go to your hive to change you’ll just get jittery and chicken out. So you march straight to Egbert’s house. You are half an hour early and probably being rude, which is abso-fucking-lutely fine with you.

“Egbert, I am here for this fuckfest of a Christmas party,” you announce, walking into his hive uninvited. He is there with Jane and Jade, arranging different high-fat low-nutrition edibles on the table. 

“Well you’re too fucking early!” Jade calls back. “Go ride someone else’s ass for half an hour.”

“Aw, Jade, don’t be like that,” John counters. “Karkat can help us set up.”

“NevermindI’mleaving.”

But you don’t make it to the door. They wrangle you into pasting some eerie faces of a leering bearded man to the walls. Then you bicker with Jade about what music to put on first. She wants to put on some “traditional earth music praising the glory of Santa Claus,” but you want Hillary Duff’s Christmas album. Before either of you can draw blood, John drags you away.

“Karkat, why don’t you hang the mistletoe?” he says, giving you a toothy smile and a wink. He hands you a piece of shrubbery with white berries.

“Why me?” you ask. “It’s going to be your presents, so you should hang it.”

He gives you a confused look, but then Jane calls him for something and you are left holding the alien foliage. With a sigh, you decide to put it somewhere out of the way. Just, you know, so you don’t get the humans riled up about Santa kidnapping someone. 

You stick it above the load gaper in the ablution closet, smirking and thinking to yourself how confused John is going to be Christmas day when he can’t find his presents. You are distracted from your gloating by a knock at the door. The first guest is arriving. Let the agonizing small talk and awkward situations begin.

By the time you get back to the main room, Terezi has already tainted the red punch with her slobber, and you make a mental note not to drink any of the stuff. Dave is talking with John. Of course those two would arrive together.

A few minutes later, Jane’s inebriated moirail shows up, and the rest of the humans follow after. One by one, the trolls arrive, until the room is uncomfortably crowded. You make forced small talk with almost everyone, talking to them just long enough to remember why they are assholes and you didn’t actually miss them all that much. Okay, you did miss them a little, even the really terrible ones like Equius and Vriska. But being around them is like opening a can of paint and proceeding to snort it through one nostril. You can only take so much before brain cells start to die.

So that’s how you end up slouched against the wall next to Tavros, shutting down his nervous attempts at banter with hard apathy.

“So, uh, yeah, after we put the fire out, we sort of, um, decided it was better if we, you know, just stayed friends,” he finished, rounding off a particularly boring anecdote of his love life. 

“Look, I’m happy that you finally had the opportunity to have your blood pusher violently ripped out of your chest, but if I cared any less about your quadrants then the sheer amount of not giving a fuck would compress me into a black hole, possibly taking this universe with it. So please do us all a favor. Keep it to yourself.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, that sounds cool,” he replies, rubbing the toe of his shoe against the ground. “Well, then, er, how about, your, uh, love life? If, you know, you don’t mind me asking.”

“I do,” you grind out.

There is silence for a long time, and then Tavros excuses himself to go get harassed by someone else. If you weren’t so busy being an asshole, you would feel a bit guilty. But hey, you’re too nervous to really pay attention. 

Your reverie is interrupted by a cough. It’s him.

“I noticed you havven’t left this wwall in probably a wwhole fuckin hour,” Eridan says, offering you a glass. “Are you thirsty?”

“It’s not the punch, is it?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good,” you reply, swiping it out of his hand. You are pretty parched, and as long as it isn’t recycled Terezi slobber, and it will buy you a few seconds before you have to say something, then fuck it. You down the whole thing in one swig and come up coughing.

“The fuck is this?” you demand. “It has the consistency of slurry and it tastes like someone left it to ferment!”

Eridan laughs, trying to play it cool, but you catch his ear fins curling inwards like startled squeakbeasts.

“Not a fan of eggnog, I guess?”

“What?!” you screech, feeling the back of your mouth turn sour.

“Um, yeah, that’s wwhat the humans call it. Apparently it’s traditional, and-”

“I KNOW WHAT THE FUCK EGGNOG IS!” you scream, and a few heads turn in your direction. You are a mixture of embarrassment and near-vomiting, but mostly near-vomiting.

You stumble to the bathroom, and proceed to dry hump the load gaper in an attempt not to coat yourself in bile.

_Please gog don’t give me a miracle baby I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility and I am pretty sure my species is not designed that way and I have less Christmas spirit than anyone else and besides the baby would probably just be another terrible mutant and I can’t wish that on a little grub._

“Kar? You aren’t dead, right? Cause that’s the last fuckin thing I need on my conscience.”

Eridan is peeking into the bathroom, looking like he is afraid you are going to throw something at his head.

“I swwear, I had no idea you wwere allergic to eggnog or wwhatevver,” he says, coming closer to you and crouching down on the floor.

“I’m not allergic, you finned fuck-face. That stuff is dangerous.”

“Howw so?” 

“Apparently it can knock you up,” you explain, suddenly realizing how silly that sounds. “Look, it’s a human thing.”

Eridan has the grace to stare at you seriously for a few seconds before his straight face crumbles and he dissolves into giggles.

“Hey, fuck you!” you respond, giving him a playful shove that topples him onto his butt. “It made a lot more sense at the time.”

“Please tell me you nevver honestly believed such absolute rubbish.”

Instead of responding, you turn to stare at your reflection in the toilet water. Yup, you’re blushing. Fucking smooth, Karkat.

“Wwoww. I’ve believved in some ridiculous things like magic, but I think that takes the cake,” Eridan says, quickly swiping away some laughter-induced spittle from his mouth. He also takes a moment to preen his cape, making sure it isn’t ruffled from when you sent him sprawling. Just as vain as ever.

“Yes, I am the biggest fucking idiot to ever grace existence. My continued breathing robs the world of vital oxygen that could be better spent growing weeds. I emit a sub-sonic psychic impulse that erodes the IQ of anyone around me. I have been known to-”

“Okay, stop,” Eridan says, holding up a hand. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Being too hard on yourself.”

You glower at him. Hollow assurances and white lies are something you’re used to, and you’ve grown pretty numb to people telling you not to be so down on yourself. But coming from Eridan, it’s…well, it’s exactly what you hoped to hear. Hearing that from him makes you _stupid._

“Yeah, well, sometimes I deserve it,” you mutter.

“No you don’t. By definition, being ‘too hard’ designates that you are doing somethin too much or to excess.”

_Oh gog, he is such an attractive smartass._

“Thank you for the lecture on semantics,” you reply. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone to wallow in self-pity and humiliation for a while.”

“Oh. Uh, that’s a shame,” Eridan says, rolling the hem of his shirt between his fingers. “Wwe havven’t talked in so long, I was kind a hopin’ wwe could catch up. I mean, unless you’vve been avvoidin’ me on purpose.”

You have, but not for the reason he thinks. 

“And you think the load gaper is the best place to do this?” you ask. It makes you sound like a condescending asshole, but you kind of are, so whatever.

“Wwell someone thought it wwas a good place,” he says, pointing towards the ceiling. Confused, you glance up and oh, look, it’s the mistletoe.

“Do you knoww wwhat that means?” Eridan asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I thought I did, but I am beginning to question the reliability of my source,” you reply. “So what does it actually mean?”

“Oh. Uh, wwell,” he stutters, taken aback by your honest response. “It means wwe’re supposed to kiss.”

“You fucking made that up.”

“Wwhat? Are you accusing royalty of lying?”

He holds his hands up, his big fish eyes shiny and innocent.

“You totally did. Just now. There is no way humans have a tradition that ridiculous.”

“It’s true!”

“Whatever, doesn’t matter,” you reply, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him close. “I’ll humor you.”

Eridan opens his mouth to say something, but he never gets the chance.

This party wasn’t a complete waste after all.

**Author's Note:**

> No offense meant to people who celebrate Christmas/ believe in Christ. This is all meant in good fun. Also no offense meant to anyone who wanted more shipping and only got more bad jokes. That's just how I write.


End file.
